De sterrennacht

(Starry Night, Vincent van Gogh, 1889, Oil on canvas, 73 × 92 cm, 28¾ × 36¼ in
Museum of Modern Art, New York City)

The Starry Night
Anne Sexton

"That does not keep me from having a terrible need of -- shall I say the word -- religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars."

--Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother

The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.

It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry.

Project #1- Lit and the other Arts. It's time for me to banish all sense of negativity and embrace all fleeting epiphanies because it's simply happier and healthier that way. Yet it's not so much a concerted effort as it is a relinquishing of pettiness. If we all stop picking on details and look around, we might realise we're so much luckier than we think.